


of trumps and suits

by cloudedhues



Category: Psycho-Pass
Genre: Alternate Universe - Amusement Park, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Canon Compliant, Childhood Friends, Cross-Posted on Tumblr, F/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-22
Updated: 2016-01-06
Packaged: 2018-04-12 08:34:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4472522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloudedhues/pseuds/cloudedhues
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The game's pretty simple: every night, I pick from my tarot deck and I have to write a drabble or short fic based on the card for that night only.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. reversed knight of swords (ginaka)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 07/22/15 ♔ reversed knight of swords  
> impulsiveness; rash actions and decisions

Three days of the cold shoulder and Akane has had enough.

“I think we should talk.”

Being the only two in the office, she finds no better reason to keep avoiding the elephant in the room.

“About what? Everything’s fine.” He shuffles through some pieces of paper on the table, eyes scanning without really looking.

“You’re angry,” she points out.

“Really, I’m not.” His hands retreat to his pockets. A rookie move _. Oh, Nobu – you should know better_ , she thinks with annoyed fondness.

“Besides, even if I was, what right should I have to be angry?” he adds a second later – voice calm, cool and intentional. He purposely affects a blank stare when he looks at her.

“You have every right,” she says, tone too light to match the weight she wants in her words.

He eyes her with a stare meant to question her sense of reason. She smarts a bit at that but can’t complain too much considering that at least he is being more honest this time.

Gino turns away, the first to break the stalemate, and returns the files back to its folder with a decisive flip. “Is there anything else you need me to do, Inspector?”

He bites a little at her title, making it sound less like a label and more like a reminder.

“You’re done for the day, but that doesn’t mean you can go.”

“Tsunemori –”

“You have every right to be angry,” she stresses, wasting no time for the point. “But that doesn’t mean that I’m sorry for what I did.”

He stares at her again – this time his eyes are brighter, two green fires burning a hole in hers and she waits patiently for the tide to return. Now that she’s brought it up, he can no longer avoid it.

Slowly, as if he is tasting the heat in every word, he punctuates, “It is not your job to die for me. My life is my burden to worry about.”

“You expect me to just stand there and watch you get killed?” Despite her intention to keep her head level, she can’t help the bit of anger leaching in her voice now.

“If it means your life, then yes,” he retorts shortly as if that would be the end of the argument and turns his back to leave.

“You are not dismissed, Enforcer.”

“With all due respect,  _Inspector_ , I’ve done all my work and see no reason why staying here would contribute to my duty.”

“Fine.” Taken aback by her apparent concession, Ginoza stills, nearly flinching when she grabs his wrist, her fingers warm and small through his sleeve. Baffled, he puts up little resistance when she drags him along with her through a path that leads to a corridor he belatedly registers as the entrance to the dorms.

It is only when they reach his room that she lets him go, crosses her arms and gives him an expectant look.

“Why are we–”

“Open the door, Ginoza.”

He purses his lips, biting the softness behind there before he lets her in and follows suit. At the sound of the door closing, Dime comes bounding from the bedroom, a happy wag in his tail as he approaches them both.

Instantly, Akane softens as she kneels down to give him a familiar pat.

“We’re no longer in the presence of duty now. Satisfied?” she asks, fingers burying themselves in Dime’s fur. The dog gives a little huff as if sensing the newfound tension. He bumps his nose against Gino’s leg questioningly.

Gino sighs and joins both of them on the floor.

“We’re always in the presence of duty.”

“Can we just pretend otherwise for now?”

He looks at her, energy already spent to summon anymore anger. She may have changed much over the past years but there were just some things about her that would stay the same. Her naïveté used to frustrate him. Now it just tires his heart. He leans back against the wall and closes his eyes, Dime happily engaged in between their attentions.

Even before Ginoza became an Enforcer, he rarely spoke of himself, rarely engaged in personal commiseration and rarely imparted anything he might have considered irrelevant and burdensome to the work at hand. Akane adapted and took to reading cues from his body – how his hands and shoulders talked when his mouth was closed, how his eyes and silence had a language of their own, and how what he said – literal as they were – often spoke less than what he didn’t.

“Why are you so dead-set against me saving you?”

“You nearly died because of it,” he says bluntly.

“But I didn’t.”

“I can’t have you valuing my life over yours. That’s not your duty.”

“We’re in here, remember? Duty has no place here.”

“Don’t be foolish, Akane.”

Her eyes are gentle even if her words are the opposite. “Even so, what I do for my duty isn’t decided by anyone but me. Not you. Not even Sibyl.”

“But who’ll deal with the aftermath of that decision? Hardly fair, don’t you think.”

Dime stands on all fours, tired of their lackluster attention on him and leaves the space between them empty as he trots to the kitchen for his food bowl. Akane takes advantage of the gap between them by covering his hand with hers.

To his credit, Gino barely moves in response.

“What can I do to make this better?”

“It’s not something you can make better.”

“Would it help if I said I was sorry?”

“You wouldn’t mean it.”

“You’re right. Because I don’t regret wanting you alive. Even if you hate me for it in the end, I’d prefer that over you hating yourself.”

So imperceptibly, so quiet she almost couldn’t see it, he softens, almost melting open even if he is still refusing to meet her eyes.

“I could never hate you. You know that.”

“Yeah. But sometimes for your sake, I wish you could,” she says mournfully, smiling at him regardless. With her like that, what else could he do but forgive her then?

As if sensing the change, she moves to kneel in front of him, leaning her forehead against his and letting go of his hand in place of his cheek. He freezes at first but eventually goes slack at her touch, and already surrendering and unaware, his hands find themselves at the side of her face as well.

“I want you to do something for me.”

“Don’t make me promise something I can’t keep,” he warns.

“This isn’t an order. This is just…a wish.”

When Gino does not respond, she continues, “In the future should something happen, I don’t want you to blame yourself.”

“That’s a tall order, Inspector.”

“But not completely impossible,” she counters. “I don’t want to be the only anchor in your life. You deserve more than that.”

Tension furrowing his face again, he says, “What’re you saying? You are enough for me. Even more than that. You are every – ”

He stops as if suddenly conscious of his words, at the closeness of their skin, the difference between metal and flesh where his hand and her cheek meets and he pulls away as if scalded.

But Akane holds fast, not letting him go that easy.

“For the sake of what I have to do, I have to give everything. I’ll often do things that’ll anger you, things that’ll make you worry and regret ever choosing me. And I’ll try my damnedest not to but I know I can’t promise it.”

“I know what I got myself into when I made my choice. Don’t think I’m such a child that I’d go back – ”

“I’m not insinuating–” she interrupts sharply then wilts, frustrated at her own tone. “Ginoza. Nobu. Look at me.

“What I’m trying to say is: don’t let me be your only goodness in life,” she says, her eyes so wide the amber of it nearly swallows his vision. “Be your own. And live for that.”

“Don’t sound as if you’ve given up already.”

“Never, you silly man. I’m not going down that easy,” she says with a teasing smile, affecting machismo as she pumps up her fists and pretends to throw punches at his stomach to guise her obvious attempts to tickle him.

“You’re such a kid,” he grumbles, despite the smile twitching at his lips.

She grins again, gives him a look that she gives only to him and him alone. “You sure about that?”

She hovers closer as if to prove her point, and instinctively he leans in to meet her halfway but misses when she pulls back with a gleeful chortle.

Caught in her playfulness, he tugs her back in, effectively trapping any attempt for her to escape. “Oh, you’ll pay for that.”

Akane giggles and doesn’t put up much resistance.

She really should let him win a fight every now and then.


	2. upright strength (shinkane)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 07/23/15 ♔ upright strength  
> strength from within; perseverance
> 
> Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. A reincarnation/soulmate AU of sorts in which Kougami dies and suffers in the life afterwards.

 

* * *

  

“There had to be one universe … where we don’t end up together. Here and now just happen to be it.” 

Gabby Dunn

 

* * *

 

  

He sees her again on the subway.

The space is crowded with busy people, all talking at once and not saying anything at all.

They are all inconsequential when he sees her.

She doesn’t look that much different as always. A little happier maybe. A longer haircut, less worry in her eyes and maybe just a tad more laughter lines. She’s wearing a sweater two times too big for her size and much too hot to stand for long in such a claustrophobic place. Two earbuds snake their way to her jean pocket and she bobs along to music he can’t hear. Her eyes are closed and he wonders offhandedly whether she likes French music over pop in this universe.

When the carriage hisses to a halt, she sways briefly, safe with her hand caught on the stanchion, and happens to meet his eyes when she opens hers.

They stare at each other for one infinitesimal second, just left to a man looking at his watch and right to a little boy tugging at his mother’s sleeve, and time slows just enough to see her mouth form a little circle.

_Oh._

Her eyes flicker as if in recognition.

Before he can question it, he realizes that his stop has arrived and very much late, he exits along the river of people spreading out of the door.

He doesn’t make more than a block past the stairs before he hears her footsteps running to him.

“Hey! You! You forgot your book!”

When he turns around, she is crouched slightly, her hand on her heart.

“H-Hey,” she gasps. “You forgot this.”

She straightens, hands him Proust and, careful not to touch her, he takes it with a small mutter of thanks. He makes to leave but stops again at the sound of her voice.

“Wait! Before you go, I’m sorry, I just – I have to ask,” she smiles sheepishly. “You look so familiar. I know this is strange but … do I know you?”

She looks at him, wide-eyed and curious, as if she wants him to say yes.

Yes, you do. You do know me.

He answers –

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kougami Shinya is born in 2084, 7 pounds and 8 ounces, in a health facility somewhere in the Kanagawa Prefecture. His mother, brown-eyed and black-haired, kisses his forehead and welcomes him into the world with a truth of three words.

Thirty-six years later, Kougami Shinya is killed by an assassin with one well-placed bullet right above his left ear.

There is little pain when he leaves and his life is snuffed out almost unfairly and easily so like the world had bored of him and moved on to much more exciting, brand new things. As with everything, the sun falls and rises again.

Some time, somewhere else, Kougami Shinya is born in a ramshackle hovel in 1926, 7 pounds and 8 ounces, to a mother that is not his mother and a name that is not his name.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This Kougami grows up in a land called Russia.

Russia is made of shadow and snow – not barren wasteland and melting ice? something, some memory not quite his own stirs  _but that can’t be right can it_? – and red posters bleed on dirty alley walls and the poor leave their corpses behind the streets where the rich buy wooden  _igrushki_  for their children. Sometimes there is a man who watches it all but no one so much as looks at this man’s direction – not because he is invisible but because he is everywhere.

Frigid winters are his childhood and his mother is fair-haired and blue-eyed and still the man takes her away one night so quietly Kougami does not even wake up in time to stop him.

When he turns 16, he lies about his age and sneaks his way into a uniform to die. They give him a gun and though it is his first time, the weight feels like a familiar burden in his hand. He rises above the ranks but that does not stop the ricochet of detritus when his fellow soldier stumbles upon a grenade. Titles mean little in the heat of gunfire and the bite of ice. Shrapnel hits him clean through his abdomen, dirtying the snow to a steaming splatter of blackness.

It is three days before he comes to; gasping like it is his first breath and his eyes struggle to register anything with shape in all that white. As if by default, they happen to land on her in the end.

And that’s when he remembers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Her name is not her name either.

Her nametag says something else, some Bulgarian-sounding something or other, but it fits. Even though her hair is more red than brown and her eyes are more hazel than amber, all of it fits.

She tells him in stilted Russian how he nearly bled out the room and the combat medics had patched up everything as best they could but even if he was to miraculously make it, it would be awhile before he could so much as stand up properly so he really should –

“It’s you.”

She stutters to a halt, thrown off balance and memorized speech forgotten, she rights herself. “Excuse me, sir?”

“I can’t believe it’s really you.”

Her eyebrows furrow in confusion (so familiar he wants to laugh and cry) and she leans forward to tuck his blanket more tightly. “Perhaps more sleep is good? Maybe to clear your mind.”

Before she can leave, his tired arm shoots out faster than he’s ever seen it, willing her to stop. “Please. Don’t.”

Her confused expression melts into something akin to understanding, even though really she doesn’t understand, and nostalgia clenches his heart more painfully than any part of his body. She sighs at his freshly red bandage and wraps a new one as best she can.

After she is done, she sits by his bedside and holds his hand.

“Don’t leave just yet,” he whispers.

How many times has he woken up to her like this? How many?

“I will not go anywhere.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unlike him, she keeps her promises.

The night before he dies, he is mostly lucid. Lucid enough at least to regale her stories for nearly an hour.

He fabricates childhood adventures, of the glory of fighting for his country and his brave brothers who never left him even when frostbite had clenched their eyes shut. Though she smiles, he knows she does not believe him – not when he is dying and not when she has seen it all before herself and will see it again and again when more men after him will die for a reason as pointless as their deaths.

Still, she laughs at the joyous places, strokes his knuckles for the sad ones, and just listens even when his voice has dropped to nothing but a quiet murmur.

His best story however is one he does not have to lie for.

That one, he saves for last.

There are so many things he wants to tell her but so little time to. So he only tells her the important parts, the parts he remembers best.

And when he is finished, he almost laughs, painful as it is, at the sight of her sitting up straight on her chair with that wonder he’s seen on her face so many times before.

A multitude of questions spill from her mouth.

_Why did you never tell me you were a storyteller? 2113 – that’s so far away, why not set it to a more reasonable year? How do their guns work exactly? I don’t understand – why did he leave? Have you made an ending yet?_

He indulges her as best he can and she falls silent when she realizes how quickly she has tired him from her curiosity. A bit ashamed at having asked so much, she busies herself by changing his bandages again and tries to hide how she blanches when she sees how little effect it has had.

She cleans it, wraps a new bandage anyway and wills a smile for him. He tries to return it.

“Tell me something,” she says, voice bright.

“Hmm?”

“Those two in your story. Do they ever meet again?”

At least this time, his smile doesn’t need more convincing. He looks at her and clenches her hand, so warm and very much alive in his.

“Of course they do.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Seven hours later, the sun rises.

He starts over.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The memory is gradual this time.

It comes out in waves, like the tide on the shore ebbing and coming forward only to start the cycle over again. He grows up and his first word is her name. His parents don’t know what it means, this word that doesn’t belong to any language they know.

He meets her early when they are both still young and naive. She is an orphan, a tagalong with the travelling merchants that visit every summer who set up stand in the village square to hawk their wares. Her specialty is golden apples, kiwis and tropical fruits harvested from her travels. The first time he meets her, he gives her two copper coins too many and tells her he’ll be back for apples tomorrow. Every summer when she returns, he buys one for them both and they eat the sweet fruit under the shade of a banyan tree as he listens to her talk of where she’s been and what she’s done.

He thinks briefly of what it’d be like to travel, to see the world and join her and leave this place once and for all.

The last day of summer when she is set to leave, she hands him a silver coin and smiles widely.

“For those coppers I owe you.”

“I told you, you don’t owe me—”

“Then I’ll just be back for it next time, won’t I?” she says and closes it over his fist like a promise.

He watches the caravans leave past the hill until the sun is a bright streak of light in the horizon and they are nothing but specks in the distance.

The summer of next year, his 16th year, she is not among the crowd of travelers driving past.

When he asks where she’s gone, the merchants simply look at each other and offer him to look at some trinkets from their table. They change the subject again and he is almost close to throttling someone until a gruff old man finally chooses to indulge him. There was an ambush three months ago, he says. It was dark. No one expected it and there was just so much fighting, a stray arrow –

He does not hear the rest.

They offer him a free apple before he leaves.

It tastes like salt in his mouth and the silver coin burns a hole in his skin all the way back home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the next life, he’ll be at his own wedding party, toasting to his new wife and his sight will wander just to the left where he’ll see her again. Just a guest, a plus one of some relative his wife barely knows, staring at him with an attentive smile.

And he’ll freeze in his speech long enough that his bride – now wrong, all wrong – will stare up at him and rub his arm with worry and he’ll have to lie and continue with the toast even though his heart is tripping over itself with four lifetimes worth of feelings over a total stranger.

Later, when his wife introduces him to her, he’ll nod and look at her in the eye and pretend not to taste apples in his mouth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The fifth time –

The sixth time is when he makes his stand.

He goes to the public library three blocks from his apartment. He stocks up on Hawking, Buddhism, William James, Alighieri’s circles, self-therapy books because surely he can’t be insane can he, goes through nearly everything in between the science and new age shelf before he’s back where he started and just staring with frustration at the massive block of texts and formulas he can barely begin to grasp.

“Sir, do you need help with something?”

Like a ghost, she’s appeared out of nowhere, carting around books to shelve and giving him a very worried look. On the top of her pile sits a hefty seven-volume abridgment of  _In Search of Lost Time_  and he feels compelled to laugh. Just how many cities in this world, how many libraries in this city, how many books in this place exist at this point in time and yet she is here again next to him carrying that text with her of all things?

“I don’t think this is something you can help me with,” he mutters.

“Try me,” she says, challenge on her face and he sighs in surrender before following her to the reference area.

They talk for a good hour on what he might want to look for, searches up the internet for another more and of course only when he is beginning to even think of a question to ask does he finally register the golden band around her ring finger.

She catches him looking and smiles softly as she scrolls through the browser. “It’s actually our anniversary today. Three years.”

“Three years, huh.”

“He and I grew up together so more than that but still. Technicalities,” she says with a roll of her eyes.

“Congratulations.”

“Thanks.” She sounds truly, honestly happy – and that is when all hypotheticals leave his mind.

There is no mathematical statement that can explain this, no logic or formula that can tell him why and how and exactly how many times more must he be born and meet her and die with the fact that they weren’t meant for each other. Perhaps the reason why he can’t find an answer is because there is no question to ask in the first place.

“You know, actually. I think this should be it.” He clears his throat and shuts the textbook on his lap.

“Are you sure? We can look at the archives for –”

“No, it’s all right. This … this should be enough for now.”

It’s not a truth but it’s not a lie either.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Research indicates that time perception changes as you grow older.

Hours feel like minutes and days feel like hours.

For him, years are minutes and lifetimes are as contained as the numbers of a clock.

He realizes something off-handedly as she talks to him – somewhere, some time, he’s lost count – that though her appearance can vary throughout, there are some things that never change. She has a habit of scrunching up her nose when she’s annoyed and her lips quirk higher on the right than on the left when she smiles. She has a tell when she lies (a slight eyebrow raise) despite her always being a horrible liar as it is.

For every time he dies, she’ll take his right hand first before taking both. For every time she goes before him, she’ll say his name as her last word. Every time she leaves him, she’ll apologize as if it is her fault and not his that he is always meant to ruin them one way or another.

Every time he is with her, time slows. For once, his heartbeat is in tune with the clock, as if the universe is centering on this, their moment together as it is now.

“Hey, are you listening to me?” she interrupts, feigning annoyance from behind her laptop screen.

“Of course I am. What were you saying?”

She snorts and flicks his arm good-naturedly. “Typical. I said that my philosophy class finally got around to Ajivika and I was asking if you could help me with my paper.”

“Ah. Well, I don’t know how much help I’ll be. Fatalism isn’t really my thing.”

“Really.” She sounds surprised. “You don’t believe in predetermination then? In fate?”

He plays absentmindedly with her eraser and looks at the window, at the sun setting in the west.

He answers –

 

 

 

 

 

 

“… have we met before?”

In the lives he’s lived, he’s realized that there is no cosmic entity laughing at him. No religious hand to strike deliverance. No God, no Devil to draw the lines for him, to say that something is good and something is bad. Everything is meant to be even if everything exists in a solitary island with only itself as its orbit and as its center. There is just time, space, mass, atoms and gravity and entropy, just this moment and an untold amount of other moments and random connections designed in the beginning point of Creation where some nameless force—the massive, collective contribution of nature—tied Kougami Shinya to Tsunemori Akane and told him he must live and die for it.

So he tells her a half-lie, a half-truth. It’s only fitting for everything that has stood between them in an inestimable amount of universes where they’ve had this same conversation in the sun. Sometimes it is raining when he says yes. Sometimes there are barely any clouds in the sky.

How many hours are in a day? How many days in a week? How many times can he lose her?

How can you lose something you’ve never had?

He answers –

“No. I’m sorry. You’ve mistaken me for someone else.”

Her shoulders still in surprise then soften, as is her way, as if she shouldn’t have expected anything else. She laughs awkwardly, self-conscious for wanting something impossible. Already, he can see himself fading for her, becoming less of a possibility.

“I see. That must be it. Sorry for bothering you.”

She smiles politely. The smile of a stranger, a random encounter to remember two months later in passing. Perhaps just once with a friend one late drunken night where she’ll recollect how she met a man in the subway with the most familiar eyes.

She walks away and briefly turns her head to look at him one last time.

There is no such thing as fate.

But there is no such thing as coincidence either.

He walks away as well and doesn’t look back once.


	3. reversed high priestess (shinkane)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 12/05/15 ♔ reversed high priestess  
> lack of vision; holding back true feelings
> 
> For a person who can read people in a second, Kougami can be such an idiot sometimes. AU.

Shinya knows Akane is in love.

Every time he sees her sitting alone in their usual table, her eyes are always off focus like her head is a million miles away. When he’d so much as ask what she’s thinking about, she’d blush before dodging the question by cracking a rib at him.

“Oh you know, the usual – just my favorite old man in the world.”

“And who would that be?”

Then she’d tilt her head in amusement and he would have to pretend it didn’t affect him, that it wasn’t adorable even though it was the same tease she’d inflicted him with ever since she was five.

Throughout the years, they didn’t particularly have the kind of relationship that necessitated waxing poetic about their innermost psyche. Akane wasn’t the type to have crushes if Yuki’s complaints on how boring her love life was were anything to come by and once in awhile, he’ll offer to have a “stern talking to” with anyone who might be giving her trouble (to which she’d smile and tell him that it wasn’t necessary). But aside from that, Akane mostly kept those matters from him and vice versa.

She had other friends for that sort of thing and he –

Well no one deserves to have to deal with his bullshit and he’s just always been good at being his own therapist in a lot of cases anyway.

He tries not to mind, knowing that she of all people have every right to be privy to their own secrets. But he’d be hard-pressed to deny that the past three weeks have been nothing but an itch on his back. Just exactly on that infuriating spot where he can’t scratch. Akane has never been one for silence with him, and their weekly lunch breaks – the only time they can make for each other now with their busy schedules – seem rudely intruded by this new presence.

This time it seems would be no different.

“So how’s your new classes going?”

Usually this would be when she’d excitedly tell him about her professors and the projects she was working on in great detail, and he’d listen and offer in suggestions here and there.

“Oh, yeah. It’s fine,” she says simply and again he’s lost her to whatever daydream she’s indulging in lately.

“What about your grandma? Her back still getting to her?”

“No, she’s better.” She takes a sip of her soda and stares outside the window.

He frowns, but tries again. “You talk to Gino lately?”

“Not recently.”

“What about your parents?”

“Here and there.”

“Kagari?”

“Yeah.”

“He finally got that job he wanted at that bistro downtown, I hear.”

“Yeah.”

“So I think I should shave my head and grow a beard, what do you think?”

“That sounds nice.”

“Akane.”

“Hmm?”

“Are you listening?”

She blinks as if waking from a stupor. “Huh?”

He doesn’t respond, and simply looks at her.

“Um. Were you asking me a question?”

“Yes. Where’s your mind been lately?”

She fidgets, eyes fleeting to somewhere else but him, a telltale sign of her embarrassment. Which is all together too strange since she’s never been the type to shy away from him.

“I won’t make fun of you if that’s what you’re worried about,” he offers.

“No, that’s not exactly it.” She doesn’t sound like she’s lying but he knows there’s something else she’s not telling him.

“Do you trust me?”

“What kind of question is that? Of course, I do.”

“Then be honest with me.”

Akane sighs, already knowing how this is going to go down. “Fine. I had a revelation recently.”

He waits.

“Or maybe not. I don’t know, I’ve probably felt this way for so long and it’s only now that I’m realizing it.”

“Do I know him?”

Something brief and fleeting flickers across her face – surprise and something else he can’t put his finger on – then she sighs. “I’m not answering that. Telling you all this is weird enough as it is.”

“No, go ahead,” he assures her, pushing down the unreasonable amount of…whatever it is that he’s feeling towards this whole situation. “What’s this guy like?”

“He’s quiet most of the time. But he can be funny in his own way. And he’s smart. Incredibly smart,” she pauses, then quietly admits, “He reminds me a lot of you actually.”

That just makes it worse.

“Now I definitely know this guy’s bad news,” he says dryly. Akane laughs like she thinks he’s not kidding.

“And like you, he has a kind heart even if he himself and other people might think differently,” she points out gently and he can feel his previous irritation melting away. “If you saw him the way I did, you’d understand, too.”

How is it that she always manages to make him feel better and feel so shitty about it at the same time?

“So what made you realize you…had feelings for this guy?” The words taste strange in his mouth. He doesn’t know if he likes it.

Her face takes that dreamy sort of look he’s seen on other girls before. Love, if anything, seems to suit her well and he doesn’t know if that makes it better or worse. “It’s not as interesting as you would think. You know how my father is. We were having dinner and he kept asking me questions about my future, and I kept saying I still wasn’t sure. But the entire time, there was only one thing about what I wanted for my future that I was certain about.”

Akane giggles, almost as if she still can’t believe it herself, and his ears almost fall out because she never laughs like that. Well not in front of him at least, but that’s besides the point.

 _This person must be serious_ , he thinks grimly.

He really should have seen this coming. It would have only been a matter of time before Akane found someone that wasn’t just puppy love. Shinya remembers even now when she was four and he was twelve and how she made him swore up and down that they would get married one day. Or when she was sixteen and how he had danced with her at her front porch when she’d come back from her prom night with no date. Or when she turned eighteen and kissed him on the cheek the day of her graduation, nearly crying in relief because she thought he’d been deployed before he could see her get her diploma.

He isn’t the jealous type, but this goes past jealousy. No matter her reassurances, he is certain he can never play a role like that again with this change.

“You’re awfully quiet,” she murmurs, chin propped in her hands.

“Sorry. I’m just having a hard time wrapping my mind around the idea that there’s a person out there who could deserve you.”

He’s usually not one for sentiments like this but he’s never been for lies either. And she has a funny way of wringing them out from him. Akane’s the best person he knows and that’s possibly the truest thing he’s certain about.

“Perhaps,” she teases, pretending to be haughty even if her face is flushed with gratitude. “But that sounds like that’ll lead to a very lonely life for me.”  
  
“You wouldn’t be lonely.”  _Not if I can help it_ , he finishes in his head.

She looks at him, eyes warm. “No, you’re right. Even then, I wouldn’t be.”

“Still, what’s stopping you from trying with this guy?”

This time, her eyes are touched with a hint of sadness. “Ah, well he doesn’t know.”

“You should tell him.”

“I’m working on it,” she says wryly. “Let’s just say he has issues getting in touch with his feelings.”

He snorts. “Is he one of those repressed types?”

Akane nearly chokes on her drink. When she’s finally got a handle on herself, her cheeks are completely pink from mirth. “I wouldn’t say repressed. Emotions aren’t exactly his strong suit.”

Despite his general sentiments of antagonism, he can’t help the twinge of sympathy he feels for this asshole. “Yeah, well, seems to me he’s just being unnecessarily difficult.”

Akane smiles enigmatically, completely enjoying this far too much than the conversation warranted. What was with her?

“Not difficult,” she says kindly. “Just…a work-in-progress.”

None of this sits well with him. Who is this guy? How could he let Akane pursue someone he hasn’t screened and given thinly-veiled threats to yet? “Aren’t you worried that you’re setting yourself up for disaster?”

“What do you mean?” She tilts her head to the side, the sight distracting him enough that he has to take another moment to pick his words carefully.

“This guy seems a lot of work and frankly, he seems oblivious as hell. Would it be worth it if he didn’t return your feelings?”

“Of course it would be worth it,” she answers so earnestly that even he has a hard time not believing her. “But I’m not too worried about that.”

“You’re not?” He tries not to sound disappointed.

“Nope,” she says cheerfully, as if enjoying her own private joke. “You see – I already know he’s in love with me. He just doesn’t know it yet.”


	4. upright sun (ginaka)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 01/06/16 ♔ upright sun  
> friendship; happy times
> 
> Teen AU where Gino and Akane have their unofficial first date at an amusement park, and Kou and Kagari are also there for some reason.

 

“That’s it right there!” Akane called out cheerfully, her finger pointing to the rollercoaster at the distance. “Doesn’t it look fun?”

He could practically feel the eagerness vibrating off her as her eyes gleefully traced the path of the metal death trap. Kagari indulged Akane with her chattering while Kou was off to the side buying some cotton candy at Kagari’s insistence, perpetually and maddeningly unaffected by the horror happening in front of them. There was a far-off scream, punctuated by the feeling of Gino’s stomach dropping, as the minuscule cars plunged into the side with an angle he was sure barely passed regulation.

No way he was riding that thing.

“—417-foot drop, tallest rollercoaster in the world, can you believe it?”

Kagari sucked the straw of his soda more loudly than was warranted and pretended to be unaffected. He shrugged. “Doesn’t seem high enough for me.”

“You say that now.”

“I’m just saying that the line’s pretty long. I don’t know if it’ll be worth it.”

“Really?” Akane’s eyes took that look that Gino had learned to avoid from firsthand experience. “Sounds to me like you’re just scared.”

He scoffed, but Gino could see him looking less certain. “Yeah right. I’m just looking out for Gino-chan here. This doesn’t seem like his type of thing.”

Gino scowled, half-offended and half-relieved that he got roped into this discussion.

“I bet Gino-san’s more up for it than you are. Besides, unlike other rides, they give you the photo at the end for free! It’s basically an honor,” she announced proudly, dashing that relief away as her fingers automatically found his wrist. He stood stock-still and hoped the ground would swallow him right then and there.

The one thing he never expected in his perpetual quest to understand this girl was how deep-seated her daredevil and competitive streak just went. Of course, he really should’ve foreseen that this would be a quirk of hers, having witnessed firsthand her usual ambition and tendency to rank first in nearly everything she attempted. Despite her modesty in most her accomplishments, he knew she couldn’t have placed her name at the top without indulging in the pride of seeing it there to begin with.

Gino flinched when she tugged the corner of his sleeve and wondered which of his bones would crack first when he plummeted to the cement. Akane didn’t seem to notice.

Kagari was affecting nonchalance but side-eyeing him with a silent plea to wuss out and look uncool for his sake. Kougami was paying the cashier and pretending not to snicker like the bastard he was.

Akane was smiling at him like he was God’s gift to the world.

Why did she have to look at him like that?

He sighed, briefly saying farewell to his life and didn’t resist when Akane cheered excitedly and dragged him arm-first before tossing a triumphant grin at Kagari.

On the way there, Kou gave him a knowing look.

_You could have said no._

He scowled. _As if you’re the expert at saying no to her._

The other conceded with a shrug as if he knew that all too well. 

_You got me there._

 

* * *

 

Despite Kagari’s claims of the line’s length, it had been actually quite short.

Which was fitting.

Whether that was a good thing, he would come up with an answer later when he was currently not dying.

He didn’t register much of it but he did remember reaching the highest point and fearing that Dime would not have much time to live either if he fell here and now. Akane’s parents were clean freaks, his father’s apartment had a no-dog policy and Kou already had enough trouble keeping himself alive.

Gino stumbled out the second the car hissed to a complete stop, awed he was still breathing, not entirely certain if he left his skeleton on the front seat as he nearly smacked into someone waiting in line on his way out.

Heaving, he clutched the rim of a nearby trashcan and emptied out the contents of his stomach, mildly disappointed at the loss of the melon bread his father had baked for him and the others that morning. Distantly he wondered why Kagari hadn’t taken the chance to make fun of him but realized that the fool was also heaving on some bushes nearby. Vaguely registering the sensation of someone rubbing his back, he groggily opened his eyes to the white fabric of patterned blossoms floating in front of his face.

“Oh God, I’m so sorry,” she said as she gingerly wiped the corners of his mouth with her handkerchief. “I should’ve asked first whether you’d be fine with going. Are you okay?”

He heard Kou hum noncommittally to his right. “Ah. Don’t worry about him, Akane. He’ll live.”

Gino mustered a glare but his only rebuttal was to drop his head and heave again.

 

* * *

 

Ten minutes and a motion sickness pill later, he came out of the men’s restroom, suddenly self-conscious and flustered as he approached Akane sitting on a bench with a bottle of water and a bothered expression on her face.

“Hey, I–”

“Oh! Gino-san,” she said, already shooting out of her seat and hurrying to his side, “How are you feeling?”

“Fine. Listen, I’m–”

“You should stay under the shade for now and let your stomach settle.” She tugged his arm to sit on the bench next to her and handed him the bottle.

“Where’s the other two–?” ‘ _Idiots_ ’ was at the perch of his lips.

Akane rolled her eyes. “Shuu’s being overdramatic as usual and insisted on going to the first-aid center. Kou went with him to make sure he didn’t get lost. And to make sure he’s not harassing some poor nurse.”

Ginoza was about to open his mouth again but the words flew out of his head when her hand materialized on his cheek like magic, making him swallow whatever he was attempting to say before.

She looked straight at him, slightly red in the face, and dropped her voice in a volume only he could hear. “I just wanted to apologize. It was selfish of me to drag you without taking your feelings into consideration. I was just so excited I forgot to ask. You’re not too mad are you?”

He mumbled something but it could’ve been gibberish for all he knew since he couldn’t even begin to remember what it was that came out of his mouth.

“It’s okay if you’re mad. I wouldn’t blame you,” she said with a flustered sort of sigh, thumb grazing his jaw and he wondered whether she was mistaking the heat on his face as something else. “Tell you what! To make it up to you, let’s not go to anymore too extreme rides today.”

“Y-You don’t have to do that,” he coughed out.

“No, really! One’s enough. I’m sure there are plenty out there that’s probably more fun than a silly rollercoaster,” she promised with renewed humor. Eyes determined again and her tongue poking out in concentration, she took out the park map from her back pocket and smoothed it out as she scanned from one side of the paper to the other. At the departure of her touch, Gino turned his face away to the cover of his hand and let himself catch his breath.

After a short silence, he heard her remark, “Oh, look at that crowd over there. What do you think they’re in line for?”

Gino picked his head up from his tired palm then blanched, feeling nauseous all over again when he got a better look. “It’s a haunted house.”

“Oh. Too bad Shuu’s not here; he loves haunted houses,” she said wistfully then returned her attention to the map. “Anyway do you have a preference on where we should go?”

“No ghosts,” he mumbled behind his fingers.

“What about this one?” she pointed to a harmless looking attraction on the paper that seemed to be a mixture of a ride and a shooter game. No ghosts there. Seeing her childlike glee back in full swing, he sighed and relaxed his shoulders, letting his hand fall on his lap.

“I’ll go to where you take me, Tsunemori.”

Taking that as confirmation, she stood up to walk, vigor on her steps again, and he followed suit but was distracted from remembering how to pick up his feet when she suddenly hooked her arm around his waist.

“What are you doing?”

“Oh sorry, was I jumping ahead again?” she looked up at him, eyes wide, other hand clutching at his sleeve. “I just thought that maybe if you were still feeling a bit weak that you’d need a little support to walk. But if you’re fine, I can –”

“No, it’s okay,” he said more hurriedly than he wanted. “I was just a bit surprised. Don’t…don’t grab onto me too tight, all right?“

“Sure.” She smiled and latched onto him again, the heat of her side pressed onto his in a way that made him all too aware of what she was doing.

He could practically hear Kou’s knowing voice in his head.

He shook it off, nearly growling. "Shut up, you bastard.”

“Hmm?” Akane looked up at him curiously as they walked.

“Nothing,” he mumbled, heat flushing in his face again.

 

* * *

 

Much much later, with the day winding down and after having ventured enough attractions to make even Akane drag her feet, they sat to rest at the same bench from the plaza. Akane chewed on a churro while she dialed Kagari’s number for the umpteenth time.

Receiving no answer, she huffed, frustration in her voice, “I’ve been calling all day. What a bunch of jerks to ditch us like that.”

She took another bite in irritation. Ginoza coughed as he stared at his phone, rereading the text message Kou had sent him three hours earlier. 

_Change of plans. Go ahead without us._

Which was followed by Kagari’s much longer and more obnoxious version:

_gino-chan!!! duddeee guess who met a girl who sprained her ankle at the nurse’s station? isn’t it great? well not the sprained ankle part but the me meeting hot girl part. she actually digs me!!! can’t miss this opportunity. kou already left though. doesn’t wanna play third wheel to two couples if ya know what i mean. tell kane i said sorry but not really bc hot girl no brainer amirite?? try not to have too much fun with just the two of you ;)_

“--I mean, the very least they could do is answer their phones! Don’t you think so Gino-san?”

He blinked, then nodded to be safe. “Yeah. Sure.”

“It’s just...” she let her anger waver and slumped on the bench. “I just had so many plans for all of us today.”

She looked up, watched in silence at the lights of the park powering on in a flickering parade of multicolored brightness. Akane stared, eyes a little happier, when the Ferris wheel bloomed into color.

“I guess it can’t be helped,” she said quietly with acceptance.

He eyed her from her peripheral, momentarily caught as well at seeing her face light up as brightly as the attractions around them. The last time he’d seen her that excited was this morning when she had gone over the entire itinerary of what they were going to do today.

Suddenly reminded, he started with a quiet murmur, “The rollercoaster…”

“Hmm?”

“Did you get it? The photo of all us at the rollercoaster?”

“Oh, I didn’t. It slipped my mind,” she said with a little laugh. “It’s a bit unfortunate though. I kind of wanted to have a picture of you screaming for posterity.”

Though he knew she was teasing, he fell silent like he swallowed something distasteful. Akane had been so excited to come here. This was the place she went to frequently with her late grandmother when she was little. She had wanted for him, all of them, to come with her, kept insisting it despite his general apathy towards frivolities as a whole. It didn’t hit him until now the gravity of her invitation. Akane was by no means a shy person but she was private with a few choice things.

That she’d openly share this part of her happiness with him did nothing but make him scold himself with resentment for not trying hard enough. Renewed with determination, his focus strayed to the site that had been making him nauseous every time he looked at it.

“You up for one more place?”

Akane blinked in surprise. “Sure. Where do you want to go?

Coming to a decision, he stood up and grabbed her hand without thinking too much of it. Akane followed him and uncharacteristically kept mute as they fell into the line, simply staring at the grotesquely costumed attendant cracking morbid jokes with the people waiting in front.

Only once they got past did she finally break her silence. “Um. Are you sure about this, Gino-san?”

“Of course. We’re here…to have fun after all,” he said gravely.

“Are you all right? You’re looking pretty green.”

“It’s just the lighting.”

They stepped into the entrance, the door creaking ominously behind them. Ambient music drifted along with the fog or whatever it was the fog machine was spouting off in the ceiling. He felt Akane flinch a little when the door slammed hard behind them.

As they walked through the dimly lit maze of hallways, he wasn’t sure if it was because of the narrowing space that was causing Akane to inch closer and closer to him. By the time they made their third turn with held breaths, she was already pressing close by his side much like earlier. Only this time, it seemed like she was the one who needed the support.

As if sensing his gaze, she looked up, embarrassment written on her face.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered shakily. “I’m not ruining your fun too much am I?”

“It’s fine. I’ll live.” He swallowed, clearing his throat. 

“Yeah,” she agreed, a little firmer as she took the lead this time when they both rounded the corner. Five hallways and they had yet to encounter anyone aside from a dummy hanging on a ceiling that Ginoza swore had moved the second time he looked at it again.

She turned her head around as they walked, laughing half-heartedly. “This is okay. This is fine. I mean, this isn’t so bad, ri--”

Her scream surprised him into screaming along. It was too dark to see what exactly had jumped out in front of her but he was decidedly too busy yelling his head off to figure it out. In her hurry, she had grabbed hold of his hand, dragging him with her as they nearly toppled over the masked figure, panic making their shared palms damp with sweat.

They passed by the hallways in top speed, the sights blurring into a mess of fog and gory backdrops. Akane slowed down just enough to make sure that the masked figure was no longer chasing after them. If he was chasing them at all to begin with.

Gino put his hands on his knees, unsure if it was his lungs that he was hacking out or what. Akane looked harried but didn’t even seem winded. 

“Are you okay?” She lowered down to his level, her eyes concerned.

He wanted to tell her he was fine and that this was a terrible idea and all he wanted was to get out of here as soon as possible but that was before a second monster jumped out from its hiding place behind him.

He would have told her all that had Akane not screeched bloody murder and swung her fist impulsively like a reflex.

 

* * *

 

He watched Akane talking to the poor teenager who was probably getting paid minimum wage as he got treated by the park’s nurse by the haunted house’s entrance. They had decided to close the attraction for the rest of the day, which was a blessing he didn’t know whether to feel relieved or guilty about.

“Just a black eye,” he heard her explain later as she walked towards him. “He told me no hard feelings. So...I guess we’re good for now.”

“That’s it?” It couldn’t have been that easy.

“He also asked for my number so I gave it to him.”

“Akane,” he warned.

“I felt bad! Besides, he seems like a nice guy.”

“Nice enough to blackmail you for your number,” he grumbled, decidedly not feeling guilty anymore. 

“Be nice. I already told him I wasn’t interested in him that way, so he better not be expecting anything.”

Gino felt his irritation smooth out and sighed, a little self-conscious. “Fine.”

Akane smiled knowingly and sat down next to him on the curb, her warmth bring some relief from the dropping temperatures. He could see her eyeing the Ferris wheel at the distance.

“I’m sorry this day wasn’t exactly what you were expecting,” he said quietly after a moment.

“Are you kidding?” she said, half-laughing. “Yeah, it wasn’t what I was expecting, but so what? Now that I think about it, that made it even better.”

Gino stared at her, momentarily dumbstruck before smiling a little. “So this whole day wasn’t a bust?”

“Of course not. You know what, I’m kind of glad Shuu and Kougami-san ditched us,” she said. “It gave me more time to spend with just you.” 

Her face was red as she said this and Gino didn’t need to see his face to know he was mirroring her.

Whether his fast-beating heart was because of the adrenaline that came from being chased by a goon in a mask or something else, he chose not to overthink it for once and grabbed her hand by impulse.

“Where are we going?” she asked, surprise and delight mingling all at once.

“I don’t know,” he said as stood and led them out to the rest of the park. It was still an early night and they were both still too young to be already tired. “Why don’t we find out?”


End file.
